The Year 8 students of 2023 have begun their first Japanese lessons, and 2023 welcomes SFCC's first Elective Year 9 Japanese class. There are many exciting times ahead for the Japanese Faculty this year!

Amongst all of this excitement, in the next two weeks, the world celebrates International Mother Language Day. This is an initiative by UNESCO that has been celebrated since the 2000s. International Mother Language Day promotes the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for the creation of sustainable societies. UNESCO works to preserve cultural and linguistic differences that foster tolerance and respect for others. UNESCO believes that "multilingual and multicultural societies exist through their languages which transmit and preserve traditional knowledge and cultures in a sustainable way."

Unfortunately, linguistic diversity is under threat as languages increasingly disappear. Therefore, the 2023 celebrations of International Mother Language Day will focus on the theme ‘multilingual education - a necessity to transform education’. Multilingual education supports the inclusion of population groups that speak non-dominant languages, languages of minority groups, and indigenous languages. It is hoped that this year's event will explore the use of multilingual education to transform education from early childhood education and beyond. 

Around 6700 languages are spoken in our world today. The Japanese faculty encourages students of SFCC to embrace both their native tongue and any other languages they are lucky enough to pick up along the way. 

Kind regards,

Ms. Tooby 

Classroom Teacher